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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27926212">There'll Be No More Goodbyes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KannaOphelia/pseuds/KannaOphelia'>KannaOphelia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Deep Space Nine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A holodeck adventure that does go exactly as planned – or does it?, Angst with a Happy Ending, Finding each other (again) after the war, First Kiss, Fix-it fic, Friends to Lovers, Holodecks/Holosuites, James Bond theme songs, Julian Bashir Secret Agent, Keep trying until you get it right, M/M, Minor canon divergence: Ezri never got together with Julian, Minor canon divergence: Garak returns briefly to DS9 before settling on Cardassia Prime, Our Man Bashir references, Pining, Post-Episode: s07e25 What You Leave Behind, Secret agents are cool, This fic has an optional soundtrack, so much pining</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:48:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27926212</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KannaOphelia/pseuds/KannaOphelia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The martini wasn't real, none of it was, but it tasted bright and dry as sunlight on Julian's tongue and that was real enough. Reality wasn't really what he wanted right now, in any case. Real life was a victory that was precious and desperate and hurt too much, destroyed planets and deaths, and here...</p><p>...here he and Garak were comrades who had saved the world with no loss more than a few holograms that could be rebooted the next time he ran the program.</p><p>----</p><p>Every secret agent needs a soundtrack. Every love story needs a happy ending.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Julian Bashir/Elim Garak</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Star Trek Holidays 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>There'll Be No More Goodbyes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamy_Dragon/gifts">Dreamy_Dragon</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Optional playlist linked. As a YT music lover, I was devastated to discover that the original Lulu version of <em>The Man With the Golden Gun</em> was not available. Please check out the opening credits <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSbj2Mx2By8">here</a> if you prefer the authentic version.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p><p>
  <strong>Diamonds are Forever</strong>
</p><p>The martini wasn't real, none of it was, but it tasted bright and dry as sunlight on Julian's tongue and that was real enough. Reality wasn't really what he wanted right now, in any case. Real life was a victory that was precious and desperate and hurt too much, destroyed planets and deaths, and here...</p><p>...here he and Garak were comrades who had saved the world with no loss more than a few holograms that could be rebooted the next time he ran the program.</p><p>He sauntered over the record player, and flipped through the discs, looking for something suited to two suave secret agents who had just foiled a villainous master plot, and were celebrating in a ruinously expensive flat. There, perfect. He set the needle  into place. The smooth, powerful voice of Shirley Bassey swelled out, softened by the replica of old technology, redolent of yearning.</p><p>And style. A lot of style.</p><p>Garak winced. "Is this really the best music the Federation has to offer?"</p><p>Julian grinned at him. "Give it a chance. You'll enjoy it." The melodramatic vocals, the twentieth century Earth vibe, all were perfect for the fantasy they were in. He wasn't quite ready to let it go yet.</p><p>He turned from the record player and Garak was there. Too close for courtesy, as always, his broad chest in the sharp suit only a few scant inches from his own. Julian had never been sure if it was part of his Obsidian Order training to his assert his power by his ability to be in someone else's space, a difference between Cardassian and his own culture, or something... something else. Something about the two of them. He had never dared ask, and he had run out of time.</p><p>He looked up into the scaled face, the bland smile on the full lips, and was aware of a sudden rush of affection and gratitude. Garak was returning to Cardassia at last, to a wreck of a planet and Empire, and he had taken the time for this, one last silly adventure. One fantasy in archaic human clothes. It was a gift to him, and he knew it.</p><p>"Thank you for this."</p><p>"It is, as always, a pleasure, my dear doctor." Garak's smile said nothing, and Julian had tried to give up reading the expression in those open blue eyes. And then, "I will miss our holodeck adventures. There will be, I'm afraid, very little time for play when I return to Cardassia."</p><p>The flat was beautiful, in a world without inter-quadrant wars, without weapons that could wipe out planets, without a genocide leaving eight hundred million dead. There was champagne in his hand and Garak was close to him, and Julian felt that there were things he could and should say, but the words didn't come, and the impossibility of them weighed on them.</p><p>"We'll be able to go on adventures again together," he said instead, his voice weaker and more choking than it should have been.</p><p>"Perhaps," Garak said. "Well. I must return to my packing. Thank you for this distraction, and this chance to say goodbye."</p><p>And he was gone.</p><p>Julian sipped his illusion of champagne, and Shirley lamented that diamonds didn't hide anything hurtful in their heart, didn't lie, weren't gone in the morning, didn't desert her. She knew she wanted diamonds. Julian felt like he should know what he wanted, but the world had changed so much in seven years, and all he was aware of was a terrible sense of longing and loss.</p><p>
  <strong>You Only Live Twice</strong>
</p><p>Nancy Sinatra's honeyed voice crooned to Julian that you only live twice, once for yourself and once for your dreams, and he smiled, watching the record revolve, listening to the velvet distortion and bumps as the needle moved over small scratches. No wonder the program was expensive, with this attention to detail.</p><p>It hadn't felt like there was a lot of space for dreams lately, with the ever pressing urgency of the War. Now, now he was free to dream of anything he wanted.</p><p>It would be useful to know exactly what to dream about. He had Starfleet, had adventure behind what he had ever thought imaginable, yet look at him. Hiding in a holodeck adventure because he didn't want to say goodbye to a friend.</p><p>He suddenly envied Garak his firmness of purpose. To restore Cardassia, that was a dream to live again for. Deep Space Nine must have seemed like some frozen version of the Fire Caves to him, and now he could dream of restoring his home. For a moment Julian entertained a ridiculous, stupid dream, of going to Cardassia Prime with Miles and Keiko... with Garak. Perhaps, if he worked for someone else's dream, he could find one of his own. But it would be a ridiculous risk, to leave Starfleet, for a married best friend, and a traitor who was... a friend, he supposed. Even if Garak was afraid of words like that.</p><p>"Will you be all right back home?" he asked awkwardly, without turning.</p><p>"I've survived a very long time, my dear. There is life in me yet. You need not be afraid of what will happen to me once I'm away from your, no doubt, essential protection."</p><p>Julian ignored the barb, and turned. Garak was closer than he had expected. Garak always was closer than expected. He looked solid and cumbersome, and moved like a cat. Like an assassin. Smiling. always smiling, except when he was snarling, and wearing the smile like armor, even now, when the minutes trickled away through Julian's fingers and the goodbye was hovering.</p><p>"I'll see you again," Julian said. Somehow it seemed unbearable to leave things as just <em>goodbye.</em> "I promise you. Will you promise in return?"</p><p>They were very close, standing chest to chest like this. The glasses held between them, like a barrier, like Lancelot's sword, he thought wildly. Like his duty to Starfleet. Like Garak's devotion to Cardassia.</p><p>"I make a lot of promises, doctor," Garak said. "Some of them, I even keep. Who knows? Perhaps this time will be the miracle." He lifted his glass in a silent toast, smiling, and Julian, from long familiarity, detected the bitterness in his smile. Fitting. It matched the bitterness in his own heart. "To promises."</p><p>"To promises, and to keeping them," Julian said.</p><p>"Goodbye, doctor."</p><p>Even the false martini tasted bitter in Julian's mouth, as he watched Garak turn on his heel and leave the holodeck.</p><p>Nancy warned him that love is a dream, and that if you think of the danger then love will move on. It was too late, even if the dream had been real. If anything about Garak had ever been real at all, except how he felt about Cardassia.</p><p>
  <strong>No Time to Die</strong>
</p><p>Julian pulled out a vinyl disc that he was fairly sure was twentieth century and spy related. He expected bombast and glamour, something to draw out the moment for a while, keep Garak here, keep things being <em>fun</em>. He had had the most fun in his life in this holodeck, after all. Danger, too... but it was the fun he remembered. Even Garak, for all his sarcasm and carping, enjoyed holodeck adventures. As long as they were here, they could postpone the moment.</p><p>The voice was as rich and sultry as he expected, but he hadn't expected the sorrow. He stood there, watching the record revolve, listening to the muffled thumps as each cycle completed. Billie Eilish sang of bleeding, of leaving alone, of debts and abandonment, and Julian felt heavy, as if he was rooted to the ground.</p><p>"I must say this was a little less cheerful than I was expecting," Garak said mildly. "Weren't you planning om a celebration? I think we deserve one after preventing the core of the Earth being swapped with the atmosphere. I won't say I'm an expert on human anatomy, but I'm sure that would have been very uncomfortable for the majority of your lifeforms, pre-space travel."</p><p>"I don't feel much like celebrating," Julian said, as Billie sang of the unfairness of life, of pairs broken up, of deception and heartbreak. "You're leaving."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Do I have any hope of seeing you again?"</p><p>"Hope?" Garak spoke as if tasting the word, as if it was a strange and unfamiliar concept. "Hope. Well, I suppose there is always hope for the living. Even now, when so many are dead and so much is lost beyond recovery."</p><p>"I suppose I shall have to hope, then." And then, because he was a fool, because for all his carefully engineered brilliance he always said too much, revealed too much, he asked, "Would you stay if I asked you?"</p><p>"If you asked me to stay in the prison where I was exiled? My dearest doctor, it is not often that anyone manages to surprise me, but you always manage it somehow." Hope, that fragile thing, sparked in Julian's heart, but then Garak said, "It must be the first time a prison guard, however amiable, has ever asked a prisoner to stay."</p><p>The bubble burst, and spilled acid down the valves of his heart, into his veins. "That's all this has been to you then?" He hated the vulnerability in his voice, the way his words lifted, saying <em>see the wound your words cut into me.</em> "Company in your prison cell."</p><p>"My friend, be reasonable." Julian couldn't see him, but he knew those large grey hands were spread wide, his palms exposed in a mockery of openness and trust. Palms were intimate to Cardassians, were special. Julian hadn't known that the first time Garak had reached for his hand, for his comfort. It was ridiculous to think the intimacy had been real. Garak lied like he breathed. "I don't want to part on these terms."</p><p>Billie asked if she had been stupid to love, if it was obvious to everyone else that she'd been a reckless, stupid fool, given her love to someone who was never on her side, and Julian blinked back something that felt like tears. "Of course not." He turned, forced a smile, held out a hand. Garak was not the only one who could smile in the face of pain. "Thank you for your friendship," he said, because they <em>had</em> been friends. "For what you did for all of us. Thank you. Cardassia is lucky to have you."</p><p>"Cardassia has never been quite sure of that." A hand enfolded his. Fingers entwined, palm to palm, a mockery of intimacy. At least for once there wasn't a smile. Just clear eyes, fixed on his face as if they could see to the back of his skull. Well, let him look. Julian had been smiling and hiding secrets since childhood himself. They really were a pair. "Julian," Garak said, and it was a shock, because Garak was hardly inclined to use his given name. "If we had more time, if I had not needed to leave so soon after peace..."</p><p>"if Cardassia hadn't needed you more. I quite understand." He was being unfair, and he knew it, but after all, wasn't he being as fair as he possibly could? Garak had always cared about Cardassia most of all, and Julian was one man, barely a friend these days. "Goodbye, Garak."</p><p>The smile was back, and it even looked like it reached his eyes. "Goodbye, Doctor Bashir." And then, so quietly that Julian was not even sure if it was real or something he had invented out of his own fantasies, "You were my first and best hope."</p><p>Julian drained his glass as Garak left, wishing he could really dull the pain with hologrammatic alcohol, and listening to Billie remind him that Garak was no longer his concern.</p><p>
  <strong>The Man With the Golden Gun</strong>
</p><p>The bad guys were defeated, without any of the loss that required in the real world. The martinis were poured, even if they weren't real. It was time to say goodbye, to let Garak go back to his wasteland of a planet, and Julian felt his heart rebel against it. Just a bit longer. A bit. He was having fun. He was <em>happy</em>. Garak was playing spies with him, and there were no real consequences, just working together and showing off to each other, and he didn't want this moment to end. Ever.</p><p>Garak, with all the weight of the world on his broad shoulders, was <em>indulging</em> him in his silly human games. It made Julian's heart ache with gratitude and fondness.</p><p>He should be drinking champagne, not martinis. Then Garak would tease him about shooting him with a cork, and they wouldn't have to face reality for a while.</p><p>His hands flipped through the cardboard squares, finding something suitable for the occasion. Lulu. Of course.</p><p>The music rang out like a gun battle, and Julian turned to see Garak's head cocked mockingly. "This is Earth music of the period?"</p><p>"More or less." Julian grinned at him, unable to contain the feeling that he was sparkling like the chandelier above them. "I thought you might enjoy it. It's in praise of a secret agent and assassin, after all."</p><p>"I have absolutely no idea why you think that would be of interest to me." Lulu's voice, brassy and joyful, rang out. "I admit I'm not a student of Earth double entendre, but is the young lady actually singing about the assassin's weapon, or about his anatomy?"</p><p>Julian's grin spread wider and, deliberately giving into the impulse before he could think better of it, he spread his arms as well.</p><p>"Dance with me."</p><p>Garak seemed slightly flustered, which was a victory beyond words. "I am not familiar with suitable human forms of dance."</p><p>"It doesn't matter. I'll lead."</p><p>"Oh, you will, will you?" But Garak stepped forward, hesitatingly, possibly nervously, and Julian took one of his hands and pulled him close.</p><p>It was entirely the wrong kind of dancing for Lulu's joyful vulgarity, he supposed. The should have been wild arm movements and hip bumps and gyrating around the flat, but he was content to wrap his free arms around Garak and vaguely sway to the beat and laugh when they stepped on each other's toes. Garak's palm was cool against his, their fingers interlaced, and a hand rested on the small of his back. The touch was tentative at first, but then firmer. Almost possessive.</p><p>Lulu asked innocently who the man with the golden gun would bang, and they both laughed at once, and Julian found himself overwhelmed with fondness. He leaned further in, wrapped both arms around Garak, and his heart turned over as the hug was returned.</p><p>"Thank you," Julian said. "For this. For everything."</p><p>"I'm the one who can never repay what you've given me," Garak said. The music wound down, and he pulled away from from the embrace. "Including this memory."</p><p>"We'll see each other again. I'll make sure of it." Julian's voice hitched. "I'm so proud of you. Besides, I think you will find over one thousand classics of Earth's literature canon on data rods have been added to your packing, and I shall expect your thoughts on all of them."</p><p>The soft sparkle had faded from Garak's eyes already, and he looked tired, but he still smiled, and it was a kinder smile than his usual one. "I will rely on you. And endeavor not to let you down."</p><p>He left the holodeck without a goodbye, and Julian leaned against the record player, smiling, and feeling like his heart was breaking.</p><p>
  <strong>View to a Kill</strong>
</p><p>Julian turned away from the record player as Simon le Bon's smooth, sexy voice urged him to dance into the fire. Garak was unexpectedly close, always in his space, always there, and in not long he would be there no longer, probably never again.</p><p>Julian crashed into the kiss, his hands scrabbling for purchase on that scaly triangular neck, lips pressed hard without technique or seduction, as if he had never kissed before, just a desperate need to close whatever gap was there between then. It was a mess until a large hand came onto the back of his own neck, adjusted his position until yes, that was right, lips parting his just right, the cool reptilian touch of an alien tongue against his warm human one as martini from one of their dropped glasses splashed against his leg. Another hand pressed against his shoulder blade, pulled him hard and close against a ridiculous tuxedo.</p><p>Garak kissed him as if he had been dying of thirst for seven years, as if he had been a champagne bottle shaken on that time and exploding at last, as if lips and tongue could undo everything that had kept them apart in all this time. As if he was claiming Julian. It was arousing but at the same time sparked rebellion in him, and he fought against the possessiveness, pushing back with possessiveness of his own. His friend, his frustrating terrible wonderful enigma, his heart. He gasped into the kiss, pulling Garak back against the record player.</p><p>Simon plaintively assured him that a fatal kiss was all he needed, and for a moment it seemed true, but the dazzling, aching knowledge of requited love was not so kind. Garak had already betrayed Cardassia for the Federation. Julian couldn't ask him to do it again for him. Not with eight hundred million dead. Not for a kiss.</p><p>Their mouths parted. Garak's lips were parted too, wet and bruised looking, but his eyes were clear and searching. Looking for the same knowledge in Julian's eyes that he found in his.</p><p>"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been," Julian quoted mindlessly, and Garak kissed him again, softly on the lips this time.</p><p>"Your Earth aphorisms really are trite. Much sadder things have happened." Garak drew a hand gently up the side of Julian's face.</p><p>"Yes." There didn't really seem anything adequate to say. They kissed again, more slowly, more painfully.</p><p>Garak paused once the program had been closed. "I think it was far sadder to think: 'It could never have been'. Thank you for not leaving me with that, my dearest doctor."</p><p>Julian was left alone with Simon singing about drenching skin in lover's rosy stain, and dully wondering if he was singing about blushes or blood. It seemed impossible to even dream of finding the phoenix for the flame.</p><p>
  <strong>License to Kill</strong>
</p><p>Gladys's Knight's rich contralto poured into the flat, and for a moment Julian almost accepted the embarrassment of admitting he had made a mistake and changing the record. This wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to end Garak's time with him on a high, fun note, not this aching ballad. Why would a film about spies have this kind of theme anyway? Bond never pursued permanence or true love. Kiss the girls, bed the one who doesn't die, move onto the next one. No consequences, no pain except the brief flicker of loss at parting. Onto the next thing.</p><p>That was the fun of this holodeck program, after all.</p><p>"What is this? It sounds quite beautiful," said Garak, and it was such an unexpected reaction that Julian left the record turning. After all, Garak was rarely expected.</p><p>"Trust you to think a love song about murder is beautiful."</p><p>"Is there really any difference between love and death?"</p><p>"<em>Yes</em>," he said, it coming straight from his heart. He set the cocktail glass down, closed his eyes and listened. <em>I need, I need, I've got to hold on to your love. Hey baby, thought you were the one who tried to run away. Oh, baby, wasn't I the one who made you want to stay?</em></p><p>Sorrow ran through him, and self-pity. He had never tried to make Garak stay. He had been always caught up in other things, and too afraid of rejection. What would someone like Garak, as complex and tangled as his surface was smooth, see in him anyway? He was grateful for their friendship, he was sure that as far as Garak trusted anyone, he trusted Julian. He was the one Garak had needed forgiveness from, and he had given it freely, without even knowing what he was forgiving.</p><p>Time to move on. Time to let Garak leave and pursue his own life.</p><p>He opened his eyes again and turned. To his astonishment Garak's own eyes were closed, and he was swaying softly to the music. No smile that invited and pushed away at the same time, no snarling anger or defensiveness, just lost in the music. It was strangely intimate, being able to see Garak while Garak couldn't see him. And Garak was letting him see. Garak knew he had turned, was allowing him to look openly and unguardedly, see the sorrow at the corners of his mouth, the glistening moisture on his lashes.</p><p>Gladys pleaded to her lover to accept they needed a friend to stay by their side, promised she would make everything all right, and Julian felt crushed under the weight of sudden self revelation.</p><p>He rarely thought of himself as being selfish and lacking in compassion, but that layer in him was still there, waiting for him to pay attention. The mess with Melora had taught him nothing. Here he was, with his friends and his work, lamenting inwardly that Garak and Miles were abandoning him. So hard done by. While Garak was returning to a broken planet where he had no friends, no support, and the one person who loved him was drowning in his own self pity and resenting him for going.</p><p>The one person who <em>loved</em> him, for all that was worth. Loved him and was attracted to him but oh, of course, would never let himself fall <em>in</em> love because that would spoil the whole game. Julian had never made a move. He had always hung back, flirted without acknowledging what lay between them, knowing that Garak would never push for fear of losing him altogether. He was the one who had run away, and was now putting the burden of his own heartbreak on Garak.</p><p>He stepped forward, studied Garak's lips under their delicate whorls of ridges. The scales on the bridge of his nose, protecting his eyes and that clever, treacherous brain, lining his jaw and the lovely long lines of his neck. Useless to pretend to himself that he hadn't caught himself wondering what it would be like to caress those sensitive scales, press his lips against them, feel that mouth parted in tenderness or passion rather than mockery. Usually it was Garak invading his space, but he was so close now that he suspected Garak could feel the heath of his breath on his face. And Garak, guarded, ever-wary Garak, kept his eyes closed, allowing whatever was going to happen to happen.</p><p>Perhaps he could. Perhaps he could press kisses onto that mouth, find out at last what it was like to have that clever, teasing tongue in his own mouth. Say goodbye properly. Bond would do that.</p><p>Julian was no secret agent, not really. he could love and leave the hologram girls because they were not real. They had no hearts to break, so his own was safe. All a game.</p><p>Gladys urged him to be the one who could be depended on to make things right. There was so much that was wrong. But...</p><p>There was also the two of them. And neither of them had ever accepted defeat easily.</p><p>He leaned forward, brushed his lips very tenderly where the ridge of scales first emerged on Garak's smooth cheek, and stepped away.</p><p>"There's a gift I hope you will accept from me," he said.</p><p>"A goodbye gift?" A strange note to his voice, hard to read. Lids still cloaking his eyes. "You have given me gifts enough already, Julian." His name was soft and unfamiliar on Garak's lips, and he wanted to hear it again. Wanted him to say, <em>Julian, your kiss is a gift</em>.</p><p>"Not goodbye. Au revoir. I'm not going to allow us to be parted. You can depend on me."</p><p>"That's very kind. As you know, however, the world is rarely kind." How had he never heard the pain behind the resignation before? Julian would swear he had been a good friend, he had <em>loved</em> Garak, had understood so many of his pains, but he had never let himself see this, the pain he himself caused.</p><p>But that was fine. He knew now how to make it right. If only Garak would accept it... but Garak was unpredictable. Garak hurt himself and others. Garak needed, really needed, someone who believed in love and hope and courage changing the world, to stand by his side. No matter how devious, how ruthless he tried to be, he needed a protector in his own way, just as Julian needed someone to stand by his own side. He just had to trust Garak to see that. Trust his instincts for once, not his brain.</p><p>"The gift isn't ready yet. So I hope you will accept a hologram for now, in token, until I can give you the real thing." Useless to try and sound light. His heart was pounding so hard it hurt. He felt the adrenaline, too, that he felt when phishing through danger, pushing through pain, knowing everything relied on him and his strength and wits and bravery.</p><p>Time to be brave. He went to a drawer where he knew a prop waited, if a subplot of the program went a certain way, and pulled it out. Then he pressed it into Garak's hand.</p><p>Garak looked at last, at the tiny velvet-coloured box. "What is this?"</p><p>"Open it." His mouth was more dry than any martini.</p><p>Garak flipped it open, and looked in bewilderment at the diamond ring, shimmering like the stars, like the wormhole, like hope. "A ring? It's attractive enough, if flashy."</p><p>"I'll get you a more tasteful one," he promised. Smiling now. The hope flaring brighter. "I'll bring it to Cardassia Prime next time I get leave."</p><p>Garak was staring at him, and there was fear in his eyes. It made Julian's heart ache, as did the shielding, self-mocking smile on Garak's lips. "I fear I must have misread the significance of this. I picked up from some of my reading that this is part of a human courtship ritual."</p><p>"The culmination of one." It felt like his heart was in his ears, in his throat, behind his eyes. "You haven't misread it."</p><p>"Julian..." And there was, under it all, the distinct satisfaction that Garak was once and for all at a loss for words.</p><p>"Marry me."</p><p>The smile fell. "I must admit, you never fail to surprise me, but... why? Why now? Why would you want to marry me?"</p><p>"I have no intention of letting you slip away from my life. You need me. And you are beautiful and fascinating and kinder and more decent than you would ever admit and you need someone to remind you of that, to remind you that you deserve to be happy, you deserve friendship and hope and support and love for the rest of your life, and I'm the one to give it to you."</p><p>"Love." Garak moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue, and his expression was unguarded still, full of hope and anguish, but Julian could see it beginning to veil itself and cloak in self protection.</p><p>"I love you. I'm in love with you." It came out so easily, now he had cracked the first layer of glistening wax over his feelings. "I probably should have led in with that, but... Promise you'll marry me. I need you, too."</p><p>"<em>Julian.</em>"</p><p>He wasn't even sure which of them moved forward first, but he was dimly aware of Garak's cocktail glass falling with a muffled thump onto pile carpet as broad arms came around him and their lips opened to each other and they kissed, they kissed, they kissed like they were each coming home. He was dimly aware that Garak's other hand remained clenched, as if nothing would make him let go of the hologrammatic box.</p><p>"It's not going to be easy," Garak said at last, shuddering as Julian's mouth moved over his scales, kissing and nibbling and sucking like he had dreamed, and it was better, so much better, to actually know the delicate texture and taste of them against his lips and tongue. "I still have to return to Cardassia, and you're still Starfleet."</p><p>"Nothing has been easy. We'll make it work."</p><p>"Yes, yes, I do believe we will." Garak sounded dizzy, drunk on love rather than martinis, and Julian felt a blossoming of pride when he bit at a scale and felt the answering surge of arousal. "If you truly want me, then <em>anything</em>..."</p><p>"I'd settle for you saying you love me and want me and will marry me. Call me selfish, but I'd like to know it." He let his hand drift down.</p><p>"If you only <em>knew</em> how much and how long I have loved you." So that was what sincerity from Garak sounded like. It was beautiful, just like the arch into his hand, the groan muffled on his shoulder. He wanted to push the tuxedo jacket off Garak's broad shoulders, unbutton his trousers, show how much he loved in return...</p><p>Quark's voice cut in over the holodeck's sound system, cutting out the music. "If you two carry on, you are paying my extra cleaning fee for erotic programs. Also, you have exactly three minutes or you are paying for an extension in your booking." There was a pause. "Congratulations on your engagement, and I am glad to offer you twenty percent off on champagne and kanaar."</p><p>Garak's eyes flashed anger, but Julian was laughing helplessly, clinging to Garak, and eventually Garak began to laugh too.</p><p>"Your generosity is appreciated, Quark," Garak said, in his more usual gentle, amused tones.</p><p>"You're welcome. Always happy to help out old friends," Quark said, clearly pleased that he was being valued at his worth by valuable business associates.</p><p>"My dear doctor, my friend, my <em>love</em>, my future husband... Perhaps somewhere less observed?"</p><p><em>Future husband,</em> Julian thought giddily, and they went hand-in-hand out of the holodecks, not caring who stared, giddy as teenagers. He had never seen Garak look and sound so light, so <em>young</em> before. It was a memory he would be able to hug to himself while they went through all the separation and difficulties they would need to find a way to be together.</p><p>He dimly realised that the song had changed as the program closed, and as they fell into his quarters, arms around each other, Sheryl Crowe sang about a day with no more goodbyes, in which <strong>tomorrow never dies.</strong></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>When I had this idea of paying tribute to Bashir and Garak, secret agents, through music, I kind of wish I could have fitted in every James bond theme. The two hardest to let go were Thunderball (Tom Jones!) and For Your Eyes Only (Sheena Easton), both of which were easy to fit to this couple. But they had to have their happy ending eventually...</p><p>(I'm not sure I've ever seen a Bond movie all the way through, dear recipient. But Julian clearly did.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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